Posts Tagged ‘Iran’

Every day, the drums bang, the cymbals clang, and a stream of men in traditional Korean outfits carrying swords and wearing helmets march outside Deoksugung Palace — where King Gojong, a noted coffee addict, first brought the brew to prominence in South Korea in the 1890s.

This elaborate ceremony takes place in front of a landmark more familiar to American eyes — the pink and orange neon sign of a Dunkin’ Donuts.

South Korea now boasts more than 900 Dunkin’ Donuts outlets, nearly as many as there are in the chain’s home state, making it the company’s largest international market. Starbucks is 300 stores behind.

Starbucks was the first to open in South Korea, in 1999, and it immediately shook up the marketplace. Koreans had a taste for coffee — during the Korean War in the 1950s, US soldiers brought packets of instant coffee and shared them with Koreans — but there were few Western-style coffeehouses. Teahouses dominated the culture, and they were often dark, smoke-filled, and sometimes involved prostitution.

Starbucks offered a brightly lit experience, some cultural cachet, and expensive coffee. “At Starbucks, Koreans jumped on the bandwagon,” said Daniel Schwekendiek, an economics professor at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul who is writing a book on Korean consumption culture. “It was considered a place to be. It’s a status symbol. Students spend $5 or $6 for lunch. And $5 or $6 for coffee.’’ Dunkin’ had officially opened five years earlier but was more focused on selling doughnuts than promoting its coffee.

Not long after Starbucks emerged, Dunkin’ recalibrated its strategy, launchinga three-year advertising campaign emphasizing “two hands,” one holding a doughnut, the other holding coffee.

By 2009, Dunkin’ had built a coffee roasting plant in South Korea — its first, and only, outside the United States — and boasted that its beans were so fresh that they’d be in your cup within days of roasting…

Even in the annals of a half century of American fast food companies pushing overseas growth, the Dunkin’ presence is notable: There are three times more Dunkin’ Donuts outlets in South Korea than there are McDonald’s.

While the international operation has been growing in recent years, it is still a small slice of the overall business: In 2013, revenues for Dunkin’ Donuts in the United States were $521.2 million, while $18.3 million came from international markets. Nearly 40 percent of all international sales came from South Korea stores…

As we put the caff back in the half-caff, we might recall that it was on this date in 2007 that Iran intensified it’s crack-down on “bad-hajib,” un-Islamic grooming and clothing. Earlier, Iranian police had warned barbers against giving men Western-style haircuts or using make-up of any sort. It was on this date that Iranian television announced that the crackdown had started its next phase, in which mobile police units would patrol Tehran in search of those who did not observe Islamic dress sense. As part of the warning, Tehran’s public prosecutor suggested that women who violate dress rules should be exiled from the capital, and forced to live in remote areas of the country.

The most monumental failure of the past two millennia: ironically, our pick—Charles Martel’s victory at the Battle of Tours in the year 732 A.D.—is considered by most Westerners to be a great success, and the so-called victory made Martel (a.k.a. Charles the Hammer), one of the heroes of European history.

At first glance, the results of the battle seem clear cut, as the Arab defeat marked the turning point in their unsuccessful attempt to conquer the world. But what would have happened had Charles been defeated at the Battle of Tours and the Arabs went on to overrun the rest of Europe? It is not only possible, but probable, that the development of modern science and technology would have been accelerated by several hundred years, making our lives that much better than they are today…

Read more of this provocative alternative history at the always-fascinating Failure Magazine.

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As we agree or disagree, we might recall that it was on this date in 1979 that the Shah of Iran fled his country. Installed by the British in 1941 (to replace his father, whose coup they had aided in 1921), the Shah ruled with steely firmness– and with the aid of close Western allies. By 1978, opposition to what many Iranians considered a dictatorship, put and held in place by non-Muslim Western powers, boiled over– amid reports of oppression, brutality, corruption, extravagance, and a series of functional failures: e.g., economic bottlenecks, shortages and inflation; and an overly-centralized royal power structure. The Shah’s attempts to control the populace, including increasing use of his army and SAVAK, his secret police, simply inflamed the uprising.

Finally, faced with an army mutiny and violent demonstrations against his rule (during which most of the statuary celebrating him throughout the country was pulled down and destroyed), the Shah abdicated the Peacock Throne and fled Iran. Fourteen days later, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the Islamic revolution, returned after fifteen years of exile and took control of Iran. The Shah visited a series of countries before entering the U.S. in October, 1979 for cancer treatment. In Tehran, Islamic militants responded on November 4 by storming the U.S. embassy and taking the staff hostage. With the approval of Khomeini, the militants demanded the return of the Shah to Iran to stand trial for his crimes. The U.S. refused to negotiate, and 52 American hostages were held for 444 days. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi died in Egypt in July, 1980.

As we reach for our lens cloths, we might recall that it was on this date in 2002 that North Korea rejected the International Atomic Energy Agency’s call to allow inspections, saying the U.N. nuclear watchdog was abetting U.S. policy toward the North. Ten years earlier North Korea had abrogated its participation in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but then agreed the following year to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for international aid to build two power-producing nuclear reactors. The following month, in his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush lumped North Korea with Iran and Iraq as the “Axis of Evil.”